CARRABELLE, FLORIDA // Hurricane Hermine made landfall in Big Bend, Florida, on Friday as the first hurricane to hit the state in more than a decade, bringing rain and high winds, and leaving thousands without power.
The Category 1 storm made landfall with winds about 80mph, according to the US National Hurricane Centre. Hermine weakened to a tropical storm as it moved inland.
Storm surges of up to 12 feet threatend a swath of the coast and up to 10 inches of rain took the danger of flooding along the storm’s path over land, including Tallahassee, which had not been hit by a hurricane since Kate in 1985.
After pushing through Georgia, Hermine was expected to move into the Carolinas and up the east coast with the potential for drenching rain and deadly flooding.
In Tallahassee, high winds knocked trees onto several houses injuring residents inside, fire-rescue spokesman Mike Bellamy said.
He said an unknown number of people were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening.
Mr Bellamy said his agency responded to more than 300 calls overnight. Mayor Andrew Gillum estimated as many as 100,000 residents were without electricity Friday morning.
At Keaton Beach, south of Big Bend where the peninsula meets the Panhandle, about two dozen people waited on a road just after sunrise Friday trying to get to their homes. Police had the road blocked because of flooding.
Taylor County commissioner Jody DeVane said several homes were damaged.
Dustin Beach, 31, rushed to Keaton Beach on Friday from a hospital in Tallahassee where his wife had given birth on Thursday night to a girl.
“When my wife got up this morning she said, ‘Go home and check on the house. I need to know where we’re going after we leave the hospital,”’ Mr Beach said.
Cindy Simpson waited near her car and hoped her beach home and boats had survived. “It’s a home on stilts so I put everything upstairs. We have two boats in the boat house and I hope they’re still there,” she said.
In Pasco County, north of Tampa, authorities said flooding forced 18 people from their homes in Green Key and Hudson Beach.
Pasco County fire rescue and sheriff’s deputies used high road clearance vehicles to rescue people from rising water. They were taken to a shelter.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge that spanned Tampa Bay was closed Friday morning because of high winds.
In Wakulla County, south of Tallahassee, a couple suffered minor injuries during the storm when they drove into a tree that had fallen in the road, county administrator Dustin Hinkel said. He said storm surge of eight to 10 feet damaged docks and flooded coastal roads. At least seven homes were damaged by falling trees, said Scott Nelson, the county’s emergency manager.
As Hermine moved north, Georgia Power estimated about 19,000 homes and businesses were without power statewide Friday.
Many of those were in Valdosta and surrounding Lowndes County, about 15 miles north of the Georgia-Florida line.
Lowndes County spokeswoman Paige Dukes said crews were dealing with fallen trees and broken power lines, but no injuries were reported. Winds exceeding 55mph had been recorded in the county, with four to five inches of rainfall, she said.
The last hurricane to strike Florida was Wilma, a Category 3 storm that arrived on October 24, 2005. It swept across the Everglades and struck heavily populated south Florida, causing five deaths in the state and an estimated $23 billion in damage.
Florida governor Rick Scott declared an emergency in 51 counties. He said 6,000 National Guardsmen were poised to mobilise for the storm’s aftermath. The governors of Georgia and North Carolina also declared states of emergency.
* Associated Press
